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Russian oligarch threatens to sue media over opposition investigation
MOSCOW —
A Russian business mogul allied with Vladimir Putin threatened Friday to sue media outlets for reporting accusations that the tyc00n held a secret meeting with a senior Russian government official aboard his yacht in 2016.
The allegations, stemming from an investigation by Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, come as Russia heads toward presidential elections next month that are expected to keep Putin in office.
Oleg Deripaska, a magnate who owns one of Russia’s largest industrial groups, said in a statement that the
investigation by Alexey Navalny was part of a “planned campaign aiming to damage my reputation.”
The opposition leader had accused Deripaska of bribing the official, Sergei Prikhodko, a deputy prime minister and former aide to Putin, by entertaining him on his yacht with several women described as escorts. The
video has attracted more than 1.2 million views, but no official reaction.
A spokesman for Putin declined to comment on the video Friday during a daily telephone call with journalists.
Instagram account of Deripaska, who has an estimated net worth of $6.7 billion, according to Forbes.
Navalny’s investigation used open-source data and Instagram photographs and videos posted by a woman named Nastya Rybka, who had previously written a book about her escort work.
In an interview on Russian television last year, Rybka said she has been hired by a modeling agency to spend time at Deripaska's yacht. The investigation linked the yacht trip with salacious details written in a book by Rybka, and speculated that the meeting could be tied to accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Ilya Shumanov, a vice president for Transparency International in Russia, called the investigation “very interesting” for its use of social media to chronicle alleged ties between wealth and power in Russia that are rarely available to the public.
“A lot of people know that there are these kinds of talks between high Russian officials and oligarchs, but, of course, it’s not often possible to show it quite like this,” he said.
It is possible that paying for travel and entertainment could be construed as a bribe in Russia.
Navalny responded to Deripaska on Instagram, writing: “What are you calling the false accusations? Was government official Prikhodko not aboard your yacht? Did he not fly there on your plane?”
Despite the clip’s popularity on social networks, it’s unlikely it will lead to any kind of official investigation or derail what seems a surefire reelection bid for Putin’s fourth term as president.
“These clips give additional weight to Navalny as an opposition politician,” said Oleg Kashin, a popular journalist who often speaks critically of the government, “but the fight against corruption in Russia has already become a kind of game. Society has gotten used to the fact that bureaucrats live dishonestly.”
Lawyers for Deripaska sued the Associated Press last year over an article that said he had paid former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort for work aimed at advancing the goals of the Russian government and Putin. They dropped the defamation lawsuit in December.
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